Despite the name of the blog, these are not actually tall tales. They are the stories of my adventures while preaching the gospel to the people of Oregon and Washington.

Monday, February 1, 2016

LEPA (Trunkey) but not really!!

February
1, 2016

What a
week! The highlight of my week and the reason for the title wasthe lunch visit I had with the Van Tienderens! I
had to sweet talk theAP's a little bit, but in the end they said I
could take an hour lunchwith them. So I called them up and set up a
visit for Saturday! It wassoooo nice to talk and see people from back
home! I got to meet theirnew(ish) baby girl Wendy and eat classic Thomas
family recipes I.e.Grandma's chip dip and her famous marbled brownies!
They're totallythe same people and definitely had the spirit in
their home. Couldn'thave asked for a better lunch!

Besides lunch, we had a lot of other cool
experiences this week. Wefound 2 REALLY solid investigators tracting.
Sadly we have to handthem off to the Palangi (American/English) ward in the
area, but I reallythink they'll progress.

Church this week was really good, but not
limited to -----

* Bishop had a meeting with just us before
church started where he outlinedfamilies he wanted us to teach.* They sang two of my favorite hymns during
sacrament meeting.* Two of the speakers sang a hymn in Tongan
before they gave theirtalk. And halfway through the whole congregation
joined in.* I am starting to learn more people's names.
(Half the ward is named Sione)* Sunday school was just good.* The bishop decided that we should go meet with
the youth third hourand that the youth should watch "The Prince
of Egypt" haha* Sister Finau came up to us after church with
two bags of food for "asnack" because "you Elders looked
hungry last week"* Bishop's son brought three non-members to
church who we are nowgoing to teach this week.

As I mentioned earlier, it has been a really
good week, and that hasgot me thinking about a blessing I received the
day I went intothe MTC. Dad put his hands on my head and one of
the things he saidwas "you will have times on your mission
where you will be happierthan you ever have been before." When I
heard that promise I assumedthere would be a couple of instances where I
would be standing in abaptismal font, about to baptize someone, and
feel a surge of crazy-intense happiness. I'm not saying that now I've
realized that'simpossible, or even that it won't happen. But it
was my observationthis week as I sat in a humble home, half the
size of my apartment,teaching a family of 10 about the love of Jesus
Christ that there is awhole different type of happiness. Completely
different from what youfeel at track meets and football games, It's the
kind of happinessthat makes you sit back, take a deep breath, and
smile from the insideout.